Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-10-10

honest, earnest, Christian life that they
may be attracted to the same Saviour up
ON whom your hopes depend.
Remember skepticism always has some
reason, good or bad, tor existing. Goethe's
irreligon started when the news came to
Germany of the earthquake at Lisbon,
November /, l715. That sixty thousand
people should have perlshed in that earth
quake and in the after rising OF the Tagus
river so terrified his sympathies that he
threw up his belief in The goodness of God.
Others have gone into skepticism from n
natural persistence in asking. the reason
why. They have been fearfully stabbed
of the interrogation point There are 30
many things they cannot get explained.
They cannot
UNDERSTAND THE TRINITY
or how God can be sovereign and yet free
agent. Neither can |. They say: Il don't
understand why q good God should have
let sin come into the world" Neither do
|. You say: Why was that child started
in life with such disadvantages while
Others have all physlcical and mental
equipment / cannot tell. They 90 out
Of church on Easter morning and say:
That doctrine of the resurrection con-
founded me-" So it is to me n mystery
beyond unravelment. understand all the
processes by which men get into the dark
know them all. / have travelled with
burning feet that blistered way. The first
word that children learn to utter is gen.
orally papa or mamma. think the first
word ever uttered was why ?" know
what it is TO have q hundred midnights
pour their darkness into one hour. Such
men are not to be scofled ut, but helped
Turn your back upon drowning man
when you have the rope with which to
pull him ashore and let that woman in
the third story Of house perish in the
flames, when you have ladder with which
to help her out and help her down, rather
than turn your back scotiingly on scep-
tic whose soul is in more peril than the
bodies of those other endangered ones pos
sibly can he. oh, skepticism is a dark
land. There are men in this house who
would give thousand worlds if they pos
sessed them, TO get back to the placid faith
OF their fathers and mothers, and it is our
place to help them, and we may help
them, never through their heads, but al
ways through their hearts. These skep-
tics, when brought to Jesus, will be
nightly affected, far more so than those
who never examined the evidences Of
Christianity. Thomas Chalmers was
once skeptic of Christ; Robert Hall a
skeptic, Robert Newton skeptic, Christ
mas Evans skeptic. But when once
with strong hand they took hold of the
chariot Of the Gospel, they rolled il on
with what momentum II ] address
such men and women TO day, /
THROW OFT NO sCoFF.
implead them by the memory Of the
good old days when at their mothers knee
they said: Now lay Inc down to Sleep"
and by those days and nights of scarlet fe-
yer in which she watched you, giving you
the medicine at iust the right time, and
turning your pillow when it was hot, and
with hands that many years ago turned to
dust sOothed away your pain, and with
voice that yOu will never hear again, un-
less you join her in the better country,
told you TO never mind for you wonld feel
better by.and-by, and by that dying couch
where she looked 40 pale and talked so
slowly, catching her breath between the
words, and you felt an awful loneliness
coming over your soul; by all that | beg
you To come back and take the same re-
| ligiOn. IL was good enough for her. 1t is
good enough for you. Nay, have
IA better plea than that.
plead by all the wounds, and
tears, and blood and groans, and agonies,
aud death -thrOCs of the Son of God, who
approaches you this moment with torn
brow, and lacerated hand, and whipped
back, and saying: Come unto me, all ye
who are weary and heavy laden, and |
will give you rest
Again, there is field of usefulness but
little touched occupied by those who are
sstray in their habits All northern ma
tiOnS, like those of North America and
England and Scotland, that is in the col
der climates, are devastated by alcoholism.
They take the fire to keep up the warmth.
In southern countries, like Arabia and
Spain, the blood is 80 they are not tempt
ed to fiery liquids. The great Roman
armies never drank anything stronger than
water tinged with vinegar, but under our
northern climate the temptation to heating
|
succumh When aman's habits 90 wrong
the church drops him, the social circle
drops him, good influences drop him, we
all drop him. OF all the men who get of
track but few ever get on again. Near my
summer residence there il a liie-avinp
station on the beach There
ARE ALI THE ROPES
and rockets, the boats, the machinery fOI
getting people of shipwrecks. Summer
before last | saw there fifteen or twenty
men who We're breakfasting, after having
lust escaped with their lives and nothing
more. Up and down our c0asts are buili
these useful structures, and the mariners
know it, and they feel that if they are
driven into the breakers there will be apt
from shore la come q rescue. The churches
of God onght to lie so many lie-saving sta
tions, not 80 much 10 help those who are in
smooth waters, but those who have been
shipwrecked. Come, let US run ont th,
life.bOats! And who will man them? We
do not preach enough to such men, VIZ
have not enough faith in their release
Alas, if when they come TO hear ~, we ART
laboriously trying To show the difference
between Subapsarianism and Supralspsar
ianism, while they have thOusanC
yipers of remOTse and despair coilinl
around and biting their immortal spirits
The church is not chiefly for goodish sort
of men whose prOclivities are all right
and who could get TO heaven praying and
singing in their own homes. Those baf
cases are the cases that God likes tn tak'
hold Of. He can save big sinner as vel
a. a small sinner. and when n man call
earnestly to God for help he will 20 out e
deliver such a one. II it were Necessary
God would come down from the sky, fol
lowed by all the artillery of heaven and :
million angels with drawn swords Ge
one hundred such redeemed men in each o
yOur churches, and nothing could stand
before them, for such men are generally
warm-hearted and enthusiastic No for
NAL prayers then. No heartless singinj
then. No cold conyentionalisms then.
Furthermore, the destitute
CHILDREN or THE STREET
r ofyar n fald of xUorb couo m ra tivelv unnc